News

Mt. Gox finds 200K missing bitcoins

March 21, 2014

Mt. Gox, the Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy last month, has found some 200,000 bitcoins worth about $114 million in an old digital storage file. The recovered bitcoins represent nearly one-quarter of those lost by Mt. Gox before the exchange went dark on Feb. 25.

The company announced its discovery in a statement late Thursday:

Mt. Gox Co. Ltd. had certain old­-format wallets that were used in the past and which, Mt. Gox thought, no longer held any bitcoins. Following the application for commencement of a civil rehabilitation proceeding, these wallets were rescanned and their balance researched. On March 7, 2014, Mt. Gox Co. Ltd. confirmed that an old­-format wallet that was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC. 

The Mt. Gox statement concluded, "Please note that the reasons for their disappearance and the exact number of Bitcoins that disappeared are still under investigation ... "